Generally speaking sacrifice symbolizes dissolution in the love of a god/spirit through the renunciation of earthly things. The act of sacrificing is in fact an act of exchange through which the individual sacrificing, influences the spiritual energy of the creator. In a different context sacrifice is a celebration of internal victory, the ability to rise above oneself.

From the Death of God to the Death of Man.
The Postmodern Self-Sacrifice of Reason

"Modern man has reached its limits in postmodernism. Modernism deconstructed that which is traditional during the course of its cultural, scientific and political revolutions. At present a postmodern revolution is taking place against modernism, for modernism still contains something that is something: something fixed, something that – albeit deformed and inferior – is human. Something valuable. Something traditional." The author reviews the historical steps that lead to postmodernism embedded in the historical process of the time in order to grasp a clear sense of its historical meaning and role.

"That which we are witness to is nothing less than attempts made at re-sacralization by Islam, and in washed-out pastel colors the ancient cultures of China and India, vis-a`-vis the existence-destroying de-sacralization carried out by the West by driving mankind into an evolutionary dead end. The elfconsuming, existence-destructing, Moloch of Western globalism will therefore induce apocalyptic clashes within this coming century that will lead the future of all mankind to its most critical crossroads. We can only hope that this drama shall not prove to be disastrously devastating, yet cataclysmic enough to bring the human race to its senses."

According to the author, "Along with genocide the historical symptoms of post-humanism are industrialized wars turned on and off with the flick of a switch, the management of total systems warranted for only a certain amount of time, and the programmed destruction of complete regions. All of these guarantee a shower of profit for the financial power. That, which the weapon industry and trade makes in the beginning, is what rebuilding brings in the second cycle. The destruction of existence proceeds according to an algorithm." In the article he also expounds on the message of various revelations of Mary throughout history: "Mary is a mediator, the carrier of sacred communication between heaven and earth, our primary lawyer before the Trinity, who secret message to her country and the peoples living within it is that of togetherness."

"We have heard thousands of analyses of our times, but none that have taken into account the metaphysical, even though Christian culture still lies at its depths. Isn't it strange? The aim of this article is to examine the result of the Great Experiment: an openly and aggressively godless, and even Christ-hating civilization has come to power for the first time in the history of the world, and all over the world almost without gap. Could this metaphysical change be responsible for the severe problems of existence on Earth? Is escape from these problems possible without metaphysical reinstatement, or conversion?"

"We are living in a constant state of language destruction. The beginnings of this destruction are not in the present: it can be traced back to early Greek philosophers along the line of the modification in the process of human thinking to the point where Heidegger says language, and thought along with it, have been torn from existence itself. ... The destruction of language is not only tangible on the level of mass media or forced language reforms, but where someone speaks the language of existence, for this language is greeted with general incomprehension."

"We no longer need poetic license to declare that space and living has become de-sacralized, merely pseudo-sacred. This has become the obtrusive reality. It is also difficult to come upon the dependable foundation of an original state of existence, because the original structure of time and space has been plastered over by enlightenment. The demonic aspects of an artificial environment fatefully dominate man, not able to find a house, a home. We cannot see the sky and the stars the way visual astrology of previous ages had made possible. The loss of tradition is manifold: it is as if the original way of seeing things has been wiped out by a different will step by step, and on purpose."

"In the search for clues to the presence of Mammon in the area of architecture, I have attempted to find an answer to the question: How can we differentiate between the appearance of Mammon and the influence money, something architecture cannot do without, has on the final outcome? I have therefore searched for a personal definition to the concept of Mammon." In his quest the author points out the inherent conflict as he defines Mammon as a false god through which "building, a primordially sacred activity, breaks away completely and irrevocably from its original object precisely because opulence, property and the exercise of will is the external prerequisite to building."

The author reinterprets and rethinks MarxÂ´s econo-philosophical theorems, analyses the sociological and historical causes of money becoming an existence destroying force, and seeks how the "power-money" of the globalised world can be replaced. Marx believes that money is not a simple, palpable object, but a colourful social institution, which always changes in nature together with the current historic formations. Therefore money has a different meaning, use, and functionality in every age and every society. This, however, can only be pointed out with the means of the science of essence and the history of essence, as the narrow-mindedness of the so-called enlightened man, who is incapable of understanding the gist of existence, will prevent him from studying money from an ontological, metaphysical aspect. The magic way of money leads from the simple money of economics to the compelling means of power of the global elite, with which you can even determine the future. We will only be able to escape from this existence destroying cul-de-sac by recreating love-money, which used to exist in medieval times.

"In almost all cultures of the world a man holding a chalice is a symbol of an earthly being in contact with a heavenly being. Stone statues depicting this have been found from territories once inhabited by Scythians to Mongolia, from one-time Sumerian territories to Mexico, and even Europe. ... The sacrificial chalice of wine often has a mystical, strange inhabitant: a snake or dragon. One of Saint John the Evangelist' s attributes was a serpent in a chalice of wine. This is based on the legend that he had drunk from a cup of wine that had been poisoned, but remained unharmed. Here, however, poison probably does not mean a chemical substance, but rather a spiritual poison, which is represented by the snake, or serpant." Zelnik explores the hidden iconographical meaning behind the chalice and its inhabitant, and its transformation in meaning throughout the ages.

Ninety Years' Testimony.
Discussion with the ninety-year-old GyĂśrgy BulĂĄnyi,
Piarist Father and founder of the Bokor Community

The Bokor (bush) movement is a fraternal association of Catholic origin. It promulgates moral reform through the love-ideal of Jesus. It professes that Jesus's method of collecting 12 people is both psychologically and socially the most appropriate form of community, and that it is the most effective way of creating an alternative, a "model", society. Father BulĂĄnyi created the Bokor movement with the intent of maintaining Catholic faith and practice under the oppression of the communist dictatorship, which strove to cripple it. His dream was the realization of a church built upon grassroots base-communities. The communist party's agenda, however, was quite different, and found an excuse for open persecution when the first conscientious objectors were from the association's ranks. In the interview Father BulĂĄnyi recalls his thoughts and mission in the movement's creation, his early life experiences leading up to it, and his opinion on its present direction.

"The community-developer is a new occupation in Hungary, dating to the 1980's. It's essence is to help city or village communities, communities both broad and narrow, take their fate into their own hands, to aid them in self-effeciency, and encourage them to have a say in the formation of their lives. A part of this is the establishment of a civil society. ... In an attempt to precisely define what the job of a community-developer is, I would say it is his or her job to help people in finding their voice and expressing it with regard to the rules that form their lives. My specific interest is how a local community can form and control local publicity. But the most important thing is that people need to form the structure of their own lives. It is not the developer who develops the community, but rather the community develops itself. We are facilitators in the process.

...Civil courage is a mentality, an attitude. There are people, who are very free, and who represent civil courage forcefully, and there are those, who are able to protect and validate their interests, to maintain independence, and to control power within the community. It is also a question of loyalty: how independent we can be of our dependencies. It is a process that must be maintained the same way freedom of speech is not a given once and for all, but must be fought for day to day."

In 2006 the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Bangledeshi banker Muhammad Yunus, for his concept of a bank for the poor and the Grameen Bank which he founded based on this concept. The concept has been generating controversy and been a focus of interest in economic thinking ever since.

Heart and Soul is needed.
Discussion with AndrĂĄs BĂ­rĂł, ex-president of the Autonomy Foundation, on the social forms of action behind the bank of the poor concept.

"The bank of the poor concept rests on two pillars of thought. The first is that the daily lives of the extremely poor can be changed with very little money, and the second is that in order for it to be successful a type of solidarity-group must be formed, within which people, primarily women, accept responsibility for each other.

– Why primarily women?

– This is something that only people who are very serious about it can be entrusted with – women. And I'm really convinced of this. The reason for it is quite natural: women give life and they are the ones who must take care of this life for decades, every single day. This type of care-taking attitude and feeling of responsibility is absent from most men. Even within the very macho Roma culture, for example, I see that cooperation with the local government or civil organizations only starts working when women take things into their own hands."

The Sixth Great Extinction in the History of the World. An eco-philosophical script

"The goal of this writing is to inspire thinking more deeply than usual, to think in the perspective of time both globally and with regard to the history of the Earth, to help understand that the fate of Mankind is not defined by what goes on on the surface, such as politics, religion, money, the media, demonstrations etc., but by ecological processes and facts. An example of this is that which is in gross over-supply (such as humans at present), becomes immeasurably cheap." The author outlines his vision of the history of the Earth in 8 scenes.

"A local government deposits a certain amount of money in a local bank and with this collateral issues its own banknotes of the same value under a made-up name. One does not understand: Have they merely given official money a new name without changing anything? The money is in deposit, the same amount has been issued, it has not increased, so what is it good for? But is what happens really only re-naming? If it works then the "MĂźnchhausen-effect" takes place, whereby a community is able to pull itself out of its problems by its own hair. Let us try to understand the concept by 'going home' and examining an experiment on how issuing a local monetary denomination called 'local' in an imaginary town could work. This usage of this local money could transform local economics as well as our outlook, radically. ... The initiative to create local money can either flounder, for it only works well if there is lively local public life where people, small businesses and farmers are rely on one another via millions of strands, or can force the local community to come into existence and continually strengthen it. All problems, that can be solved using local money facilitates the formation of connections, while at the same time leaving less time for non-local issues to distract our attention. To summarize we can state that the weight of virtual space decreases while the weight of real things increases, that the amount of running off to distant places decreases as the number of activities carried out locally increases, and that as human relationships become richer the Local changes our wastefully spent time into time spent with meaning."

"The reason the so-called 'eco-villagers' turned their back on the city during the 1990's was to sow the seeds of a new and better life in the country with a clean slate, in clear circumstances. They generally looked for villages that had fallen into poverty and were dying out, where there was no industry, no industrialized agriculture, where the water and air was most likely clean, and where soil pollution was negligible. ...

It could be that those who say World War III has been going on for quite some time are right, in the fight for oil, strategic and valuable raw materials, drinking water, the market. The essential question is how we can get out of this deceitful situation with a clear conscience and with as few injuries as possible. There is a war going on between the town and the village, not openly of course, but between the lines. It seems that the scores of sociological and psychological studies, regional development programs one better than the other, have been in vain: the situation continues to deteriorate. ... By the nineties the situation for some became ripe for change. They felt Hungarian society went from out of the frying pan and into the fire because of political capers. The only way out, the only solution, was the Village. There was hope that village destruction tendencies of past decades would be reversed and perhaps the good ole' days would return. We knew the only way out of the trap of materialism (be it communist or globalist) was self-sufficiency and the pursuit of reviving healthy communities. The opportunity was given (and still is): geographically Hungary is one of the most ideal places in the world to achieve independence from the currents of globalism."

"In places most appropriate for building a family home the right kind of earth for building it is more often than not readily available, just as it had been for thousands of years. ... With a few sensible tricks a house that does not shut out environmental heat with all its might – unlike architectural traditions of the present – could be built. The image of an earth-house emerges: a wall made of earth is notable, but if it is not thick enough it will not resist temperatures below freezing point. A wall three meters thick, however, will. ... If someone builds a house in the country today, that is not an earth-house, he is making a mistake."